Mbarire opens up on her frustrations at the helm of UDA

Deputy President Kithure Kindiki has started attempts to broker truce with Embu Governor Cecily Mbarire, after she openly said that her role as interim United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Chairperson was being undermined.

On Wednesday, Prof Kindiki met Ms Mbarire and the Embu County Assembly Majority Leader Peter Muriithi at his Karen residence.

The meeting came barely a day after the DP met with Embu Senator Munyi Alexander Mundigi and Members of Parliament (MPs) from Embu County.

During the Wednesday meeting, Prof Kindiki said they discussed status of national government projects in Embu and interventions to protect key agricultural values chains including tea, coffee, macadamia and Cathus edulis popularly known as Muguuka.

But pundits argue that the meeting is a high stakes strategy to bolster chances of the Kenya Kwanza administration and especially the UDA party that is quickly losing mojo in the Mt Kenya region.

Ms Mbarire and Prof Kindiki have been at loggerheads for months. And with the unveiling of Democracy for Citizens Party (DCP) by former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua on May 15, 2025, Prof Kindiki is keen to win the Mountain back to President William Ruto's fold.

Mbarire woes

What started five(5) months ago from DP Kindiki as an ominous warning to Ms Mbarire is nearing to explode, threatening to destroy her political career. 

She is being warned that she is most likely about to become the next victim of use and dump in President Ruto's growing list of casualties, threatening to bury her three(3) decades in electoral politics.

Ms Mbarire who is the ruling party--UDA--interim Chairperson was publicly criticized by Prof Kindiki on January 30, 2025, for allegedly failing to protect the president from hecklers.

Since President Ruto authored the impeachment of Mr Gachagua in October 2024, his subsequent visits to Embu County have at all times encountered public heckling from area audiences, including in a church.

Prof Kindiki had accused Ms Mbarire,53, of failing to protect the President from the public heckling.

"I talked to my sister Cecily, the governor of Embu and my longtime political friend. And I asked her, being a UDA governor and the national chairperson of the party, how can the party leader, the president, come to your hometown and be heckled? How?" Prof Kindiki fumed.

Prof Kindiki hinted that "if you cannot prevent such incidents, there was little justification for keeping you in the party’s leadership. How is that possible? The youth are heckling the president over something he has said that maybe they don't want to hear. Then what reason do we have to keep you?" 

Ms Mbarire did not immediately react to the warning, instead she hit the Embu ground defending the president and his government, dismissing Gachagua impeachment as a non issue.

In April, the president visited Embu county during his six-day tour and was heckled again, this time more loudly where the audience shouted to him to cease pathological lies in his speech.

In what appears now to have been an underground storm, Ms Mbarire brought it to the surface on June 1, 2025, during her Madaraka Day speech at Makima grounds.

Ms Mbarire accused unnamed government officials of plotting to undermine her politically with an intention to throw her under the bus.

“I have noticed that there are people who have started plotting against me, and they are inside the government that I fight for daily. They are holding secret night meetings and if the intimidation does not stop, I will not hesitate to expose them," she said.

Political pundits in the region now agree that "when you see ruling party chair taking her frustrations to the public arena, then things are elephant and most likely the overall boss who is the president is after her using proxies".

Manyatta MP Gitonga Mukunji says "the Embu ground is becoming hotter for all those outside Gachagua formation and the governor is only reacting to ground pressure".

He said that "Ms Mbarire is afraid that soon we will be facing off with her boss in the Mbeere North by-election where their chance of a win is below five(5) percent".

Embu county has also seen the emergence of another anti-Ruto firebrand in the name of former Attorney General Justin Muturi, who has been on a public spree of releasing damning secrets of the government.

To tame his influence, President Ruto picked Mbeere North MP Geoffrey Ruku to replace Mr Muturi in the cabinet where he named him Public Service CS, setting the ground for a tricky by-election.

According to a UDA communications officer who asked not to be named, "State House now trusts Mr Ruku more than it does for Ms Mbarire".

The officer said Ms Mbarire has been shying away from taking Mr Gachagua head on since she balances between her political survival and defending the president.

"We are not ignorant of the fact that the ground is bad for us. But we want to reclaim it. Unless Ms Mbarire goes full throttle and stake her head out for the president and 2027 reelection bid she remains a liability. We have entered a phase where it is either you are fully with us or you are with them," the officer said.

AVDelta News was shared a brief where it was rumoured that Ms Mbarire was making a 2027 deal with the Gachagua wing ostensibly brokered by her close ally who is gunning for Nyandarua gubernatorial seat on Gachagua's DCP party.

But in her Madaraka Day speech, Ms Mbarire appeared to be privy to that information when she hit out that "on daily basis I continue to face ground hostilities defending this government and our President".

She reminded the officials of her loyalty to President Ruto, but insisted that her gesture should be met with respect.

Former Mt Kenya Region MCAs caucus chairperson Mr Charles Mwangi (2013-2022) said Ms Mbarire appears naive to fathom that President Ruto has developed cold feet in Mt Kenya region and appears to be demolishing the UDA for another alliance ahead of 2027.

"I fail to understand why Ms Mbarire wants to behave like a tick that hangs on a dying cow...she is the one who on January 17, 2025, announced the start of the death of UDA through merging with the Amani National Congress," Mr Mwangi said.

Ms Mbarire, he added, announced that the merger intended to consolidate political influence under a unified political outfit.

"She should know that it is not only herself in trouble, it is all UDA bigwigs in Mt Kenya unless they rally their voters to love the president and guarantee him a landslide win in 2027 in the region," Mr Mwangi said.

The Mountain had given Dr Ruto 87 percent of its votes, constituting 47 of his narrow national win against Mr Raila Odinga. 

According to one of President Ruto's key pillars in the region--The Service Party leader Mr Mwangi Kiunjuri--there is no one targeting Ms Mbarire.

"I'm in constant engagement with President Ruto's inner circle about political programmes in Mt Kenya and we have not discussed Ms Mbarire as an outsider," Mr Kiunjuri said.

He added: “What I know is that we have set for ourselves targets to be delivered ahead of 2027 General Election and they might be eliciting heat bordering on fear for the non-believers.”

He said that Ms Mbarire knows that "we have to prove to the Ruto cause through believable opinion polls that we have to relegate Gachagua's DCP to be our inferior in the region, post at least 60 percent following for the president and control at least(8) eight Mt Kenya counties, Embu being one of them".

He said that the president targets at least 60 percent win in the 2027 General Election, "believing that we can bag 60 percent in Central, Western, Nairobi, Nyanza and Eastern, 70 Percent in coast, and North Eastern while 80 percent is the target in Rift Valley".

He added that "it is true that we have been meeting in both Embu, Tharaka Nithi, Meru, and Kirinyaga hotels to strategise on how to win the looming Mbeere North by-election in Mbarire's county, but not to undermine her".

Mr Kiunjuri said "the targets are bound to scare those of little faith and I'm sure that when Ms Mbarire will start seeing the importance of our common targets, she will get down to work and stop expressing sounds and exercising acts of fear".

Mr Kiunjuri said "the Deputy President is President's principle assistant and is a national deputy symbol of national unity by the command of the Constitution, hence why he cannot be in the business of begging for permission from ground operatives anytime he intends to visit a region".

Mr Kiunjuri said "I urge Ms Mbarire not to open a battlefront within a battle and instead get down to the serious business of marketing President Ruto's second term bid by way of convincing Mt Kenya region that it is only in this government's hands that our interests are safest".

Mr Kiunjuri said that "we all like Ms Mbarire and unless she has her own plans, she remains ours to protect and help achieve her political goals as she helps us also achieve ours on behalf of the president".

But Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale urged Ms Mbarire to start accepting the downing reality that her head might be on President Ruto's chopping board "in his notoriety for use and dump style".

Dr Khalwale said that he too was a victim of the use and dump, that the signs already out for her are sufficient grounds to make her accept.

"What Mbarire is facing is not new in the UDA party. Don’t cry, just move on,” Dr Khalwale wrote on June 2, 2025, on his social media accounts' pages.

The senator gave Ms Mbarire a case study of his own experience and that of Mr Johnstone Muthama, also hinting that the Embu governor is a victim of ‘Karma’.

"I and Muthama were UDA founding members...You replaced Muthama as the national chairperson while I was replaced with Cleophas Malala who was not even from our party, but from Amani National Congress," Dr Khalwale said.

According to Dr Khalwale, what Ms Mbarire is going through is part of a pattern within the party, and she should not be surprised, maintaining that it is ‘Karma’ catching up with her.